Palliative & supportive care
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Palliat Support Care · Jun 2004
ReviewThe delirium subtypes: a review of prevalence, phenomenology, pathophysiology, and treatment response.
Delirium is a highly prevalent disease in the elderly and postoperative, cancer, and AIDS patients. However it is often misdiagnosed and mistreated. This may be partly due to the inconsistencies of the diagnosis itself. ⋯ The mixed subtype of delirium seems to have the worst prognosis, the hyperactive showing the best prognosis. The treatment of the agitated delirious patient is also more consensual. Haloperidol remains the gold standard in the treatment of delirium regardless of the clinical presentation, but the literature provides several alternatives that may prove more specific and have less adverse effects (atypical antipsychotics, psychostimulants, anesthetics).
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Palliat Support Care · Mar 2004
ReviewClinical practice guidelines for the management of psychosocial distress at the end of life.
Algorithm-based clinical practice guidelines relating to psychiatric, psychosocial, and spiritual domains can effect a major improvement in end-of-life care by defining a gold standard for clinicians in an area not previously subjected to such a level of scrutiny. This article outlines the status of these guidelines and offers recommendations for policy development relative to doctor-patient communication and management of distress (psychological, social, existential, spiritual) and psychiatric disorders. The arching principle of these standards and guidelines is the recognition that the physical and the psychosocial are interrelated and overlapping in end-of-life care, and that patients should receive their total care as a seamless integration of physical and supportive services.
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Palliat Support Care · Mar 2004
Measuring quality of life at the end of life: validation of the QUAL-E.
To validate the QUAL-E, a new measure of quality of life at the end of life. ⋯ The QUAL-E, a brief measure of quality of life at the end of life, demonstrates acceptable validity and reliability, is easy to administer, performs consistently across diverse demographic and disease groups, and is acceptable to seriously ill patients. It is offered as a new instrument to assist in the evaluation of the quality and effectiveness of interventions targeting improved care at the end of life.
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Palliat Support Care · Mar 2004
Physicians' practices related to the use of terminal sedation: moral and ethical concerns.
Although terminal sedation (TS) has generally been seen as legal and ethically acceptable, ethical and moral issues remain. Little is known about the use of TS in general clinical practice and about how TS is viewed by physicians, given moral and ethical concerns. The objectives of this study are (1) to describe attitudes of physicians regarding terminal sedation; (2) to explore demographic characteristics, such as age, gender, subspecialty, and number of years in practice, that might be related to the use of TS; and (3) to compare physicians who have and have not used TS on the degree to which they view TS as moral and consistent with their professional and personal ethics. ⋯ Professional education and opportunities for discussion appear necessary to help reconcile the conflicts raised in the use of this end-of-life treatment strategy.